


Facing Backward

by Anonymous



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Always Savoy, Friendship, Gen, Savoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-15 10:23:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18071609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: There are times when Aramis doesn't hate the cold. Times when, by all logic, he probably should.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The setting is not specific, but I picture this taking place earlier on in the series.

Porthos dumped his armful of gathered branches onto the frozen woodpile and stared around the camp. D’Artagnan stood hovering near the struggling fire, rubbing his palms together as if to coax the blood back into them, and Athos was approaching from the north, carrying his own mixed bundle of kindling and logs.

“Damn,” said Porthos, catching the attention of both as he furrowed his eyebrows.

Dropping his cargo on top of the pile, Athos swept his own gaze around, to the fire, to their shelter, to the tree line and back. “Aramis?” he said, making eye contact with d'Artagnan and Porthos in turn.

Porthos nodded, tilting his head to where Aramis’ doublet was hanging, discarded, over the front edge of their tent post.

Feeding the fire another log, d’Artagnan pushed himself to his feet. “Isn't he out collecting wood?”

"He was supposed to stay in camp," said Porthos.

Athos sighed. “He didn’t go north—I just came from there.”

“Not east either. Not from what I could tell.” Porthos scanned the ground for a reliable trace of Aramis’ footprints. The deer had been through before they'd come into the hollow, packing the dirty snow beneath their bodies. “I’ll start south, then.” 

Athos nodded. “I’ll take west.”

“Are you sure we shouldn't just wait for him to come back?” asked d’Artagnan, drifting away from the fire to join them. “It hasn't been that long."

Porthos met Athos’ eyes then cast his glance over their camp.

Clearing his throat, d’Artagnan shuffled uncomfortably. “I’m rather certain he just went to help gather firewood after finishing up with the tent. He seemed restless before I went to feed the horses.”

“He didn’t go to collect firewood,” Porthos said bluntly. “He went to take a walk. He likes taking walks in the cold.”

“I thought Aramis hated the cold.”

Athos graced d’Artagnan with a sardonic look, already striding towards the west. “Not when he should,” he tossed back.

Frowning, d’Artagnan caught Porthos’ sleeve. “What's going on? We're not expecting trouble, are we?”

“Stay here,” Porthos ordered evasively. “Keep the fire going. In case he comes back. If he does, keep him here with you. We'll explain later.”

-xxx-

Aramis breathed in through his nose, the icy air settling into his lungs.

It wasn’t snowing anymore—that had ended the day before—allowing the heavy shroud of cloud cover over the forest to slowly dissipate, opening the sky so that whatever warmth remained hovering near the earth could escape. And it had—thinning out and fleeing upward, dissolving into the wide expanse of gray.

The unadorned cold bit into his fingertips, right through his gloves, and was even better without them. Without them, the chilled air sharpened, tangling with his skin and ruffling through his shirtsleeves, nipping at his heels as he walked. He was far enough from camp that the world felt quiet. Not even the ravens having sought him yet. Though they would, sooner or later. They always did.

It took a while before he found the right spot—until he found the right kind of tree. A tree with just enough frost collected in the bark so as to provide the correct texture when he leaned his back and head against it. Letting the cold from its surface penetrate each notch of his spine and spread out across his shoulder blades.

Though he’d discarded his doublet and cloak at the camp, he kept his boots on—because he’d had them on _then_ —a habit born of sleeping boots-ready on campaign. Even though they hadn't been on campaign. Not then.

A training exercise.

It'd just been a training exercise. None of them as wary as they should have been. Not even the veterans, most of which were more used to honest battles with declared intentions rather than stony soldiers tip-toeing in the dark.

Drawing his weapon, forcing his cold fingers to be dextrous enough to manage his firelock in the cold, Aramis closed his eyes, and let himself drift backward.

tbc


	2. Chapter 2

It was endlessly fascinating to him how sharp the memories became each time he did this.

Never mind that Athos did not entirely believe the memories. Insisting—whenever the three of them actually suffered themselves to trip into the subject—that the images Aramis kept examining in his mind were wishes and demons, not realities. 

_(You torture yourself, constructing and deconstructing it, telling yourself you should have been more capable of changing circumstances over which you had no control.)_

When they did trip into the subject—when Aramis was very cold, Athos very drunk, or Porthos feeling particularly stubborn (sometimes all three), Aramis could never adequately explain that he knew certain points of his memories were mixed up. He knew there were gaps.

He could never adequately explain that the cold sharpened him. The cold helped him sort the memories out. And it was better to let it—to meet on its terms.

( _I do not see how this could possibly be helpful to you_.)

When the shadows and shades loomed up behind him, sometimes it was better to face and embrace them.

( _You know as well as I do, brother, some demons can't be reasoned with._ )

To let the ice bite into him.

To let it fill his lungs and leach into his ears as he closed his eyes and traced the course of those events from the beginning to the end. Remembering the smell of frost and leather, the disquiet of the horses. The presence of muted footsteps weaving through the trees.

It was almost certain that Anthoine had been killed first. Sleeping, as he had been, on the outside edge of the tent he’d shared with Dathie and Lefrent. Near the banked fire. Where the residual smoke and popping coals might have masked the assassins' approach.

Lefrent would not have died long after, which death must have been quick and silent. Though sometimes, Aramis believed it might have been Lefrent’s voice that had roused him.

But that memory was not consistent.

Sometimes, he remembered that strangled sound as having come from Duval.

Sometimes Vizet.

Most of the time, however, when he remembered the cry that had jolted him—when he closed his eyes and breathed it in with the cold—it was Anselme’s voice. Anselme, gasping out a call to his mother—or perhaps his God—and then nothing.

The brightest and most loyal amongst the twenty to die.

( _Does it matter who it was? You couldn't have stopped it_.)

Even Athos—in the drunk darkness of his early days with the regiment—had liked Anselme. Little as he'd know him, or any of them, back then.

But perhaps Athos was right about that one. Correct in claiming that Anselme’s cry was a fabrication of memory, created simply because Aramis did not like to think about Anselme dying without a sound. Without being heard.

When Aramis had found him later— _after, after the slaughter, after he'd woken to see Marsac walking away from him_ —

( _For weeks, you couldn't walk ten steps without falling over. Do you really think there was anything you could have done to stop Marsac from the path he chose?_ )

—Anselme had been in his tent, on his bedroll. His face bore no bruises and his hand had not touched his sword. He'd never even had the chance to reach for it.

It stood to reason that there had been no cry.

And in truth, there'd been a dozen other sounds that night that might have brought Aramis upright. Should have, arguably. Footsteps over the forest floor. The soft draw of heavy steel. It needn't have been a voice. Needn't have been a cry, nor plea, nor accusation.

( _It wasn't your fault_.)

Opening his eyes, Aramis lifted his head and stared at the landscape, grief surging beneath his breastbone as he imagined the approach of obscured attackers coming through the trees. He switched from his firelock, to his parrying dagger, maneuvering the hilt between his aching fingers. Making them move. And move. And move.

After a moment, he stilled and pressed a hand against his hip, where he’d taken a heavy blow from the broadside of a cutlass as he’d rolled out of his tent.

Retracing the struggle, feeling the phantom pain, he remembered how he'd scrambled, rising off the packed earth, immediately dropping to his knees again in order to catch Emeric as he fell against him, wheezing for help.

With few options, he'd hauled him toward the canvass, only to feel him go limp as a sack of grain, at which point he'd stumbled, folding down beneath him.

Aramis had never shared that part of the story with anyone. Not what Emeric's last breath had sounded like, nor how, for too long, Aramis hadn't been able to draw his sword, trapped as it'd become beneath Emeric's body.

Sheathing his dagger and holding his hand in front of his face, Aramis flexed his icy fingers and pictured the bruises that had spread sluggishly down his wrist and across his palm, born from using his arm to parry a particularly vicious blow while he'd lain on the ground, trying to shove away his friend's body.

Throughout the ensuing days in that forest, during his own private communion between the cold and the dead, it had almost certainly been that injury that had hobbled him the most, minor though it had been by comparison.

He'd cursed it, thinking that, in the heat of battle, had his arm been working better—had it not been so hampered by the temperature and the damage—he might not have dropped his firelock in the frost. He might have drawn his sword faster. He might have actually killed the ambusher's leader, rather than simply wounding him with a strike across his back.

 _A fool’s tale_ , Porthos called that one.

When they talked of it at all.

Which they didn't. Not when it could be avoided. There were pieces of this event all three of them still viewed too differently.

( _The damage to your wrist was not your only injury. Wish as you might, you could not have changed the outcome.)_

There'd also been the blow to his head, of course.

( _The one that still gives you headaches._ )

The one that had knocked everything askew and left him waiting, panting, for a knife through his neck. He could never quite remember exactly how it had happened. No matter how often he retraced the events.

Later, when he'd opened his eyes, trying to swipe blood from his temple, Marsac's hand had been on his shoulder, the man himself hunched, intent of gaze, like he was trying to see in the dark.

In the distance, there'd been the vague and muted siren-sound of steel on steel.

Sometime after that, there'd been the sound of soft crying somewhere far above him. And the memory of heavy limbs that would not move on his command.

( _Still not your fault_.)

Athos would glare whenever they came close to touching this part. Aramis most often danced around it, skirting what he could and could not remember through the fog of night and morning, while Porthos hovered near a window or a door, swallowing his tongue, because if he joined the conversation, Marsac would be mentioned, and they’d all be yelling then.

When day had finally reappeared, Aramis had thought that perhaps the image of Marsac walking away from him, treading through the eastern sunlight, had been a dream. Later, he'd half expected to find him slumped amongst the bodies. Face pressed down into the snow with a dagger though his heart or a ball through his head.

Porthos had only heard that part of the story once.

( _That man was no Musketeer.)_

Aramis should have stopped him.

_(He should have stayed with you. You understand that, right?)_

What Aramis most clearly remembered next was finding Corentin—the furthest body out from camp—his arm nearly severed and the bolt of of a crossbow in his gut. A crow had been perched on his boney shoulder and was already pecking at his eyes.

As carefully as possible, Aramis had dragged him back toward the trampled tents—he didn't remember what he'd said to the crow—only to find the horses stolen and their food picked over. No voices. No coughs. Not a life in sight.

He’d been hindered, managing the remains. Parsing the remnants of equipment between the times he couldn't keep his feet. Matching cloaks with pauldrons, tracing the path of the slaughter. Lost, for a time, regarding what ought to be done next.

He had not been new to the smell of blood or the violence of battle.

He had been new to being a ghost. 

Abruptly, through the trees, came a whistle. Familiar, low and sharp. Back pressed to the tree, Aramis lifted his head, caught for a moment between past and present as he watched Athos approach across the frozen ground. Coming closer and closer until he put a hand on the side of Aramis's face and was proven to be real.

"I hate it when you do this," he said.

It took a moment for Aramis to get his mouth to move. "I know," he answered. But he couldn't find it in himself to apologize or to feel ashamed. Not yet.

"Are you with me?"

"Yes."

tbc

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize this chapter was ambitious, covering tenses and time periods with much vagary and allusion. Trust me, I still question my approach here. Nevertheless, it was my approach, lol. Hope I didn't lose too many of you.


	3. Chapter 3

Removing his cloak, Athos pulled Aramis away from the tree and slung the wool around him, deft fingers buttoning the closure with swift, brusque movements. 

"Athos," Aramis started.

"I should have stopped this," Athos interrupted, before Aramis could try to form more words. "You've hardly spoken in days. I should have seen where your mind was taking you. I should have seen this coming."

 _I should have seen them coming_.

Aramis stared at him, and shivered—something he thought his body was too numb to manage. Helplessly, he skimmed his gaze back into the woods, where enemy combatants were nowhere to be seen.

He exhaled, returning to Athos' face. "My folly is not your responsibility," he said, releasing a cloud of breath into the air through the unclenched hinge of his frozen jaw.

Tactfully, Athos picked up his hands, holding them between his own in an attempt to warm them. "Is it folly?" He peered at Aramis, gaze both piercing and open.

Aramis looked away. "You would say so."

"You wouldn't." Squeezing his wrists and then letting them go, Athos grappled with his own gloves, folding one, then the other, up over Aramis's pale fingers.

"Here we are then," Aramis breathed. An unsettled stone shifted in his chest, lodging heavily below his ribs. "Athos, this is unnecessary. I was not—" At that point he stopped. He closed his mouth, uncertain of what he might honestly say.

His lips were numb. The skin on his face stiff and inflexible.

He wished not to argue.

"Are you with me?"

"Yes."

Athos quirked an eyebrow, as though unsure if he believed him. He put a warm hand to the side of Aramis' cold neck and squeezed. "Your actions are not so unfathomable as you think, brother," he said. "I understand. That does not change the fact that I wish you wouldn't… that I wish..." He stopped himself, eyes worried but kind. "I hate it when you do this," he finished simply.

"I know," Aramis repeated.

Because he did. He knew. But, he needed this more than he needed Athos to stop hating these incongruous parts of him. The foolish and damning pieces he had not shed from his soul.

Besides, they were not so different in this regard. He imagined Athos' perspective was not far separated from his own in response to the evenings he and Porthos had spent, and would spend again, tossing tavern after tavern, only to find Athos slumped at a driftwood table, soaking in wine or brandy, with his back unprotected.

If Athos needed to forget. Aramis needed to remember.

"Tu-whoo," interrupted Porthos, an echo of Athos' sharp, signaling whistle flashing off his lips as he approached from an angle behind Aramis's back.

Aramis very nearly flinched, closer to being startled than not, and he frowned deeply, feeling Athos grip his arms to steady him as he swayed. It was an unsettling sensation, given the landscape and his intent. All at once, he felt himself begin to shiver.

"He okay?" asked Porthos, coming close enough to throw his cloak over Athos' and stop Aramis from reaching for his weapon.

Numbly, Aramis turned to face him, not realizing that Athos' hand had returned to his face. He breathed steadily for a pace, then let his hand relax and fall away from reaching for his sword. Porthos' expression, he saw, radiated warmth and worry, and just the smallest hint of rage.

If Athos needed to forget. And he himself needed to remember. Porthos, he thought—Porthos, he’d long suspected, needed both.

-xxx-

By the time they got back to camp, the darkening sky had turned to pitch, and Aramis was drunk with cold, even with the cloaks.

Neatly, Porthos steered him toward the fire, a heavy arm wrapped around his shoulders—their appearance and progression tracked carefully by d'Artagnan's wary gaze. Aramis could feel the looks exchanged. The way Porthos shook his head and the way d'Artagnan closed his mouth. 

Allowing himself to be seated near the stones banking the wind, he folded his legs beneath him, the vague heat reaching fleetingly for his face.

Impassively, he stared at the flame, before his brain jabbed him with a reminder. Fingers trembling, he reached for his firelock. Keeping eyes to the forest, he worked the weapon back and forth between his hands, then fumbled for the cloth and rammer below the pouch by his waist.

From several feet away, d'Artagnan started toward him, only to have Athos step into his path. Their voices rumbled, low and uneven, over his head, even as Aramis forced his hands to cooperate with his demands, threading the rammer into the barrel with over-concentrated delicacy. Repeating the process again, and again, alternating hands, before returning the rammer to its pipes and resting the weapon on his thigh.

After a time, and while manifesting long deliberate movements, Porthos lowered himself down beside him, rolling a shoulder into his. "You're done now, yeah?"

Aramis looked up, skipping his gaze back and forth across the tree line, then inward toward the fire. Very deliberately, he put the firelock away, gracing Porthos with a nod.

"Alright then," Porthos said, bringing his arm back up to wrap around him. "You're shivering worse than Constance was, later that same night we had her dress up as a lady of ill-repute in the dead of winter."

Aramis felt d'Artagnan's eyes settle upon him again, the gaze coming from somewhere over by the tent. In response to expectation, Aramis exhaled a weak laugh, once, and felt the low edge of it turn genuine. He stood in a strange place within his memories. Strange and distant. Rolling his head toward Porthos, he watched as he blinked, shadows moving across his cheek from the firelight. "Are you angry?"

Porthos stayed quiet for a long moment. "I'm angry," he said. "But not at you."

Aramis took that, walking it slowly back and forth in his mind. He wasn't looking for absolution. Not for this. And there was still too much about these events upon which they necessarily disagreed. "Perhaps one day you will be angry at the right person."

"Maybe," said Porthos. "But it still won't be you." Tilting his head, he pressed a kiss above Aramis' ear. "Come on," he said. "You'll warm up better in the tent."

"Let me help," added Athos, leaning down and pulling Aramis to his feet—keeping him there steadily when he faltered. 

-xxx-

Inside their shelter, layered under blankets, Aramis folded his hands behind his head and listened to Athos' and Porthos' distant voices. Listened as they were securing the camp. Feeding the fire. Dividing up the watch.

The old ghosts standing near were still speaking also. Not yet ready to be put back into the past. But they were growing softer. Drifting into the quieter part of his soul, where demons sought their rest.

Positioned at an angle to him, d'Artagnan stared at the wax-clothed roof and matched his breathing.

"There are things about you that I don’t understand," he finally said.

“Me specifically?” Aramis asked.

“All three of you,” d’Artagnan admitted straightforwardly. "I thought you hated the cold. Why would you do this?"

"Perhaps it makes me stronger," Aramis whispered. “Perhaps your life will depend on it one day.”

"So it is to do with what happened in Savoy? You think these… these _walks_ … will make you better prepared? For what? Another ambush?"

Aramis closed his lips.

D'Artagnan was trying to be delicate. He could tell. Clumsily so, perhaps, but enough to be endearing.

Aramis could not find it in himself to be bothered. Rarely had he found sincerity, even when artless, to be an annoyance. And, he could not help but think—while d'Artagnan was older than Anselme had been, he was not wholly unlike him.

He could not help but think—Anselme would have liked d'Artagnan. Much as Marsac had not.

Reaching over, Aramis touched two cold fingers to the young Musketeer's head. A quiet, affectionate tap. “Go to sleep, d’Artagnan. There are no ambushes now. We are safe enough tonight.”

-xxx-

Fin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the kindness and support on this one. I really appreciate it.


End file.
